Strawberry Knitting Pattern and Yarn Along

I have been wanting to knit a little strawberry for ages!
So here it is, knitted from yarn scraps, I have knitted it in the magic loop technique, or DPNs would work just as well too:)

Materials:
Red and green oddments of yarn
4mm circular needles
Merino stuffing
Sewing up needle
4mm DPNs to knit the stalk i-cord

Pattern:
Cast on 4 stitches and join for knitting in the round.
Round 1:Knit
Round 2: Kfb all stitches. (8 stitches)
Round 3: Kfb all stitches. (16 stitches)
Round 4: Knit
Round 5: (Knit 2, kfb) across the round, knit 1. (21 stitches)
Round 6: Knit
Round 7: Knit
Round 8: Knit
Round 9: (Knit 2, knit 2 together) across the round, knit 1 on the end. (16 stitches)
Round 10: Knit.
Round 11: (Knit 2, knit 2 together) across the round. (12 stitches)
Round 12: Knit
Round 13: (Knit 1, knit 2 together) across the round. (8 stitches)
Round 14: Knit
Start stuffing your strawberry now.
Round 15: (Knit 1, knit 2 together) across the round, knit 1 stitch on the end. (6 stitches)
Cut thread, thread needle and put stitches on the sewing needle, make sure you have stuffed the strawberry sufficiently, pull the stitches tight.
Finish off.
Sew in any ends.

Green Top:
Cast on 4 stitches, join for knitting in the round.
Round 1: Knit
Round 2: kfb into all stitches. (8 stitches)
Round 3: Knit
Round 4: kfb all  stitches. (16 stitches)
Round 5: Knit
Round 6: (Knit 1, kfb) across the round. (24 stitches)
Round 7: Knit 3, ***turn, purl 3, turn, knit 1, knit 2 together, turn, purl 2 together, turn, put the first stitch from the left needle over onto the right needle.
Pick up 2 stitches along the left side of the knitting on the right needle.
Cast them off by knitting them across onto the right needle one by one and passing the right stitch over each knitted stitch.
Place the right needle's stitch on the left needle and knit 2 stitches together, knit 2.***
Knit from *** to ***

Continue to knit this way until all the stitches have been knitted.
Cast off the last 2 stitches down the side of the little leaf, finish off and sew in ends.

The strawberry and its green fringed cap.

Sew the green cap onto the strawberry.
With 2 double pointed size 4mm needles, pick up 2 stitches on the top of the green cap and knit a small i-cord for a stalk.

This pattern is for personal use only.

Joining in today with Ginny's Yarn Along.

Enjoy!
Linda

Saturday

I would like to thank you for your lovely comments and emails regarding Mamma4earth's 1000 sales, your kindness is deeply appreciated. I have decided to let the pattern special continue until Saturday the 24th of December as a thank you for all your love:) To find out more about the pattern special, you can read this post.

Yesterday Jen, Erin, Caiden and Richard rode a 12 km mountain bike race just north of Pretoria at Babbas Lodge. They had a wonderful time!

There were dung beetles rolling dung all over the reserve:)

Back here at home, my apple is still growing beautifully on its tree. I am so excited about this, let me tell you!

Our Agapanthus plants are in full bloom.

I discovered these lovely mushrooms growing under my Grapefruit tree, amongst the Comfrey this morning.

And, we have a new Sparrow family that has built a nest and moved into the heart of a Fever tree in our garden. The thorns on this tree are huge. I think he has chose a very safe spot to build his nest.

I had to include this photo from Friday morning. One activity Kye loves, is to make himself tea. This is one of my favourite tea pots, it is adorned with guinea fowl and was a wedding gift from Richard's Aunt up in Zimbabwe.

Tomorrow I will show you the new pattern I have been working on, a farmyard cow:)

Have a wonderful weekend.

Green in the Garden...

I love to walk around our garden in the late afternoons... The sun setting, casting long shadows, creating the most wonderful light that shimmers off of everything that it touches... I walked around our garden with my camera and took photos of everything that we have been busy with over the last week... The green is amazing, we have been having so much rain lately, the grass has rejuvenated overnight and our fruit trees are abundant with fruit...

As I walked through the herb garden, I looked up and saw how the sun's rays were dancing around these Calendula flowers...

This weekend, I managed to find some thornless Blackberries! I was so excited, I bought four vines and mixed them amongst our Raspberries. We also placed trellisses behind them for support as they grow and extended out irrigation. I can't wait for them to fruit!

A Calendula flower...

These are the new fruit trees we have planted, this one is a Naartjie, then an Apple and another Naartjie. The naartjies have already started to grow...

An exciting discovery... our Apple tree has blossoms! I am really hoping for apples to appear:)

Grapefruits have started to grow on our Grapefruit trees too.

Our grapevine extends all the way across the front of our home and provides wonderful shade. The girls counted 78 bunches of grapes so far!

Our tomatoes are reaching a lovely size and are still green. I have heard of fried green tomatoes, anyone made them before, what do they taste like?

We have found 4 Litchis on our Litchi tree! Yay!

Our Peaches are almost ready to pick too...

Thanks for stopping by :)
Take care
Linda

Fruit!

The first of our fruit has ripened! Beautiful ripe, juicy Nectarines are hanging on our tree. We also have peaches and plums, not yet ripe but they are still growing nicely and our apricots are turning yellow. Our raspberries are also fruiting at the moment and the children love running down to the bottom of the garden and searching for the bright red berries amongst the green leaves.

The new fruit trees that we have planted recently are naartjies, litchis, pomegranate and pears. The litchis are already growing on the trees and I am so excited to see if they grow into wonderful fruit, this being their first year of fruiting. We have also been re-doing our compost heaps, we have built 3 large heaps for now and will continue adding grass cuttings and straw from the chicken and rabbit enclosures and veggie scraps. I was also wondering about diatomaceous earth for the compost heap, I have never added this before, but now I am considering it. Any information would be greatly appreciated:)

Our worms are also doing really well, and I must dilute the worm tea and add it to our new seedlings of tomatoes (Bella Rosa and Coeur de Boeuf) and a new lettuce mix, all organic. We are also saving seeds this year for next years planting.

The rain has been pouring down finally after weeks of really hot weather, our garden is GREEN! So wonderful to see at last...
I am filled with gratitude for our vegetable garden and fruit trees...
Take care
Linda